


All or Nothing

by Linnet



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Ballet, Crack, Fanwars, I Don't Even Know, Instagram, Instagram escalates things, Otabek is learning ballet, Stretching, Teasing, Yuri is helping, please never take my internet away from me again, so many innuendos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10034900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnet/pseuds/Linnet
Summary: Otabek is spending the summer in Russia to train. Yuri takes offence at his stretching routine. Mila thinks they're hilarious."Yuri is staring at him. He can feel the heat of it even before he turns to see him. The death glare is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Yuri is lying on his stomach, with his legs splayed out in a box split. Impressive, definitely. Intimidating, not so much."Now featuring: Instagram shenanigans, Otabek's fans, tutus, leggings, and Yuri attempting to take bad pictures of Beka.





	1. Starting Something

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. It's my first YOI fanfic, I had fun writing it, there may be more. Honestly I just love how much space they've left with the characters and I wanted to get some characterisation practice in, and this just kind of happened. 
> 
> This takes place, like two and a half years after the series ends. Whether that's relevant or not depends entirely on how you read this and whether I ever decide to write more of it. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“Altin, what are you doing?” Otabek looks up. Yuri Plisetsky is standing over him again, a familiar look of horror on his face. He looks down, wondering, but his legs are straight and his grip on his toes is solid. It doesn’t even pull at his hamstrings anymore.

“You can call me Otabek.” He demurs, and goes back to stretching, pulling his chest towards his knees until he feels the burn in his legs. Yuri has openly disapproved of his routine every day since he got here.

Yuri flops down beside him, and starts his own stretches. “That’s the 400th time you’ve said that, and I still don’t give a shit.” They sit in silence for a while, gradually switching muscles and occasionally bumping legs, until Yuri finally cracks.

“Look, your foot is in completely the wrong position, you’re not stretching at all!” He snaps. Mila happens to walk past at exactly that moment.

“Hmmm.” She leans down, adjusts the angle of Otabek’s foot, and smiles. “There you go!” Otabek can feel the difference immediately. He nods his thanks, and Mila wanders off to start her own warm up on the ice.

Yuri is staring at him. He can feel the heat of it even before he turns to see him. The death glare is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Yuri is lying on his stomach, with his legs splayed out in a box split. Impressive, definitely. Intimidating, not so much.

“I’ve told you to correct that every single day, and you finally fucking listen to Mila?”

Otabek pretends not to notice that Yuri forgot to call Mila a hag. He only does that when he’s genuinely upset about something, and pointing it out is hardly going to improve that mood. He shifts position again.

“You didn’t tell me how.” He points out, which is perfectly true. Having someone tell you that you’re doing it wrong is completely useless if they don’t also tell you how to correct it. It was easier to just keep doing it wrong until Yuri figured that out.

Yuri can really move when he wants to. Like a tiger; fluid, fast and completely unpredictable. Otabek suddenly finds his back significantly closer to the floor than he’s ever managed on his own. Two solid hands press into his spine with much more pressure than he ever though Yuri was capable of.

It stings, but in a way that feels like success. After a moment of adjustment, he relaxes into it.

“Push harder.” He commands, straining his body towards the floor and into the burning. Yuri snorts at him.

“Don’t be an idiot. You’ve got to take it a step at a time or you’ll pull something.” Yuri is not used to being the voice of reason, but this is fine. Telling Otabek he’s a moron is an easy way to stop him hurting himself.

It’s not nagging.

It’s not fucking nagging, Altin’s an adult, but he’s also a moron who can’t be trusted not to push his body’s limits. It may have got him this far, but Yuri can’t believe he hasn’t had any major injuries yet, and he’s not about to let him start now.

“I can do more than this.” Otabek insists, sweat beading on his brow. Yuri rolls his eyes.

“Not today you can’t.” He lets go, as if to prove his point. “But I can do this for you every day until you can.” Otabek seems to mull that one over. For a second, Yuri thinks he’s going to tell him not to bother, but then he nods.

“Deal.” He rolls his shoulders out as he stands and heads towards the rink. Yuri watches him go. Mila manages to catch his expression of unrestrained shock on camera, but it only earns her a mild growl from Yuri. He’s been a lot milder recently. She doesn’t miss the shouting matches, obviously, but it makes him a lot less fun to wind up.

“What on earth did he say to you?” She teases, leaning over the rink to ruffle Yuri’s hair. He ducks out of the way, still staring at Otabek’s back.

“... he compromised.” He says, still sort of wondering what exactly it was that he’d said to make that one happen.

Mila actually, nearly, slips.

“He what?”

\--

Otabek is aware that he has a reputation already. At first, the others were impressed by his dedication.

Yuri was the first one to notice that he didn’t know when to stop. Katsuki’s stamina was something that they were all used to, although envious of, and initially they just assumed Otabek was blessed with the same fitness.

That is, until the time Yuri dragged him off the ice on the point of collapse after just trying one too many quad toe loops.

Yuri tries not to notice that Mila, Georgi and Yakov are all watching him in varying degrees of surprise as he picks Otabek up off the ice and shoves him towards the locker room.

“How many did you even do?” he demands, bristling, as soon as he’s got Otabek sat down.

“I lost count after twenty.” The response is aimed at his boots. It’s not that he can’t look at Yuri, he just needs to concentrate to stop his vision blurring.

“Altin. Are you fucking insane?” He frames it like a question, but he’s not expecting a response.

He didn’t expect Yuri to be quite so upset with him.

“I have had to fight for this.” He responds, slowly undoing his laces. “I was not blessed with resources, or natural talent, but I had time and I had determination. I would not be here at all if I didn’t push myself.”

Yuri, for his part, is still getting used to Otabek’s absolute honesty. It’s a bit like a club to the face, sometimes. He’s so unused to people being so... open. It’s like it comes easy to him.

Yuri swats Otabek’s hands away from his feet and takes over, slipping the boots off as carefully as possible. Otabek watches him, his mind swimming. He’s exhausted. It’s not like he’s new to this feeling. It’s just that usually he can focus on the task of getting himself home, only Yuri seems to be doing it for him. He’s even taping his feet. Not only is that a disgusting job after a practice that long and gruelling, he’s doing it really, really well. Although in typical Yuri fashion, the surprising tenderness of his touch is accompanied by a continuous grumbling.

“...people don’t just say shit like that.” He finishes.

Otabek blinks, his brain suddenly catching up to

“It never occurred to me to lie about it.”

Yuri stares at him with a look of such incomprehension on his face that Otabek suddenly realises he was probably talking about something completely different. Then his expression softens somewhat, and he looks away.

“Of course it didn’t.” He sighs. Then the softness is gone, and his eyebrows are furrowed again. “Shit, I need to get back to practice.” He gripes, then turns to Otabek and nearly pokes him in the face with is finger. Otabek slowly goes cross eyed trying to look at it. Yuri has to fight back a smile and force the order in to his voice. “I’ll be half an hour, wait here until I’m done. I swear to god, if you try and get home by yourself and end up getting yourself killed I will fucking resurrect you just to kill you again myself.”

He stalks off, leaving Otabek to wonder what exactly he’s supposed to do with himself while he waits.

Mila ducks away from the doorway as Yuri walks towards it, the evidence of the encounter stored safely in her camera roll.

\--

“Stretch properly, I swear to God if you break something I will flip my shit.” Otabek refrains from pointing out that he’s pretty much already doing so.

“I won’t benefit from doing the same thing every day.” He doesn’t rotate through the same sequence every day, partly because it would bore him, but partly because he knows more than one stretch for each muscle, and they all do slightly different things. Depending on his plan for that practice, he’ll choose the most appropriate ones.

“Yakov and Lilia gave me these exercises.” Yuri pouts, defensive. He’s sitting in box splits again, one foot up on each bench and his body pushed down inbetween them. Even with Yuri sitting on his back, Otabek is never going to achieve that level.

“I am not flexible. My stretches focus on different strengths.”

He turns back to what he’s doing. Yuri snorts at him.

“That one’s hardly a stretch. Plus, you look ridiculous doing it.” It’s a challenge, obviously, but Otabek wonders if it could also translate to something else. He’s getting better at reading Yuri’s evasive responses, enough to know that asking for something outright would be far too much for Yuri. He may demand things from people all the time instead, but he’s never demanded anything from him. He may be unique in that, he thinks. Either way, it leaves him with a lot of encrypted conversations.

“Are you saying you can’t do it?” It works. It’s so, so obvious, but it works.

Yuri is on his knees in a second, sharing the exercise matt instead of grabbing his own from a few metres away. Otabek relinquishes the space, if only to position Yuri’s hands properly.

“Keep your wrists directly below your shoulders. Knees under your hips.” He directs, gentle hands changing Yuri’s position where necessary. “Keep your hips forwards, pointing towards the floor. Now, stick your leg out at a ninety degree angle.” Yuri does so, smugly. Otabek grabs his hips and rotates them back to the front. Yuri flinches, but grumbling, concedes. “I told you to keep your hips facing the floor. Turn your leg out. Don’t let it slip backwards, keep it at a ninety degree angle from your body and your other leg. There.”

He moves back to stand in front of him. He does, actually, look ridiculous. Mostly it’s because of the shit-eating grin, though.

“This is piss easy.”

“Hold it there for thirty seconds.”

“Sure, whatever.” Otabek flicks out his watch and starts counting.

Fifteen seconds in, Yuri’s face is starting to go red. He doesn’t utter a sound right until Mila walks in.

“What on earth are you two doing?”

“Stretching.” Says Yuri, sounding strained, when it becomes clear that Otabek is not going to stop counting to respond.

“You look ridiculous.” Mila informs him, gleefully, and takes a picture. Yuri snarles, but holds still right up until the second Otabek reaches thirty. His face is puce now, as he springs to his feet to grab at Mila’s phone.

“Other leg.” Otabek reminds them casually, before they get too distracted by their fight. Yuri’s face collapses into horror. If Otabek had been the kind of person to say ‘I told you so’, in that moment Yuri might just have killed him.

Instead, he challenges Mila to join him. It’s actually a much better way of venting his frustration, because Mila is surprisingly crap at it too, and doesn’t even make it to thirty seconds.

Somehow, this leads to it becoming an all-out championship to see who can maintain the position for longer.

Otabek wins.

Mila posts the picture of he and Yuri at 45 seconds in on her Instagram in retribution. It’s not actually a bad one of him, but it’s the worst photo he’s ever seen of Yuri, which is saying a lot. It’s quite hard to look elegant when you’re straining to hold a single leg in the air and trying to put off your opponent by swearing at them at the same time. It’s even harder when you’re mid-collapse.

Yuri stops poking fun at his stretching routine.

\--

Even he’ll admit that it’s not the most flattering position to be caught in.

Otabek’s not exactly sure what Yuri did to piss Mila off this time, but it must have been something pretty awful.

The one of Yuri sitting on his back while he does the splits is innocuous enough. Actually, after the amount of time it took him to manage it, it’s pretty nice to see the proof of the success. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!” Mila captioned it, which seems odd of her. He and Yuri may have been jostling for the top spot for the past two seasons, but their friendship has never been based on rivalry. He wouldn't be in Russia if that were the case.

The ones of all three of them doing the stretches he taught Mila and Yuri are actually quite sweet. Well, except the one where he’s correcting the position of Yuri’s hips. Obviously, she’s captioned it with something flirty and entirely inappropriate.

The one where Yuri is taping his feet would be fine, if they didn’t happen to be in almost exactly the same pose as the one that Victor and Katsuki posted on Victor’s Instagram when they officially announced their engagement. They’re looking right at each other in that one as well, which makes it even harder to defend.

The last one, however, is definitely the worst.

One of Yuri’s most liked Instagram posts is the one of him leaning up against the edge of the rink on his phone, his legs held in a perfect split position.

One of Mila’s most popular posts is Otabek in the same position, but he’s not holding his leg up by himself. Yuri is stood behind him, pushing his right leg up in the air. They’re standing very, very close. Yuri is taller than him now, but their legs are practically the same length, which makes it... It's a very compromising position. Mila hasn’t even bothered to caption it with anything but a winky face. She has, pointedly, tagged them both in it though. None of the other photos; Just this one.

He glances over to where Yakov is trying to pry Yuri off Mila before he does any actual damage. There’s a lot of yelling and flailing going on. They seem distracted.

He saves some of the posts to his phone.

Almaty is going to seem very quiet when he gets home tomorrow.


	2. Stretching Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when you leave me without wifi for a weekend. 
> 
> I blame Nikkiyan's beautiful drawings of Yuri stretching for this madness. Once I saw them, the idea wouldn't leave me alone, and the second chapter was inevitable. 
> 
> See here: http://nikkiyan.tumblr.com/post/159416384472/6-basic-leg-stretchs-by-yuri-plisetsky

“Yuri!”

“I’ve seen it already.”

He can tell from Mila’s tone exactly what she wants to talk to him about. It’s not even necessary to look up from his phone. That level of delight only comes from an opportunity to tease him.

“It’s gone viral,” she declares, far too excited about it for Yuri’s liking. It’s not even lunchtime yet, and the only reason he’s in the break room at all is because Yakov has him on damage control.

“I’m not even in it,” he grumbles, scrolling through the comments section, and replying to exactly none of them.

“No,” Mila moves behind him, as of to take the seat next to him. Instead, she plops her crossed arms on his head, and rests her chin on them, pressing his face into the table. “But you’re _tagged_.”

He shoves her off, and gives up on scrolling, dropping his phone back on the table.

“I fucking know, Mila. Why do you think I’m in here instead of on the rink doing something actually useful?” She seems unperturbed by his glare, dragging the chair next to him out and settling herself in.

“Does Yakov really want you to respond?” She pulls her own phone out, and flicks through Instagram until she finds it. Refreshing it a few times gives Yuri an idea of quite how fast this thing is blowing up. Groaning, he goes back to resting his cheek on the table.

“He’s not after an official statement, if that’s what you mean. He just wants me to acknowledge it, and apparently, liking it doesn’t count.”

“Hmm,” Mila cocks her head at her screen, mischievous smile firmly in place. “Do you need help composing something?”

Yuri huffs, unimpressed.

“Do I want Yakov to ban me from Instagram again? No thanks.”

“Hey, I would have stolen your phone already if I wanted to ruin your reputation,” she grins, turning the volume up on her phone. “But you’ve been sat out here for an hour. I think you need some help, no?”

“No,” Yuri grumbles, but she’s already playing the video.

Yuri’s seen it about ten times already, more than enough times to know exactly what happens, so he buries his face in his elbow and ignores it as best he can.

At first, there’s only giggling. Yuri had been confused – what on earth would Beka want to post a video of a bunch of his junior rinkmates for? Then the person filming manages to get the camera through them.

They talk fast, accented, but it’s definitely Russian – unmistakeably so. Yuri would guess that the cameraperson is Otabek’s coach, knowing that they speak Russian instead of Kazak together, and also that Otabek does very little of his own social media. He might be the one posting it, but he’s rarely the one behind the camera.

The tinny static of Mila’s phone might distort their voices horrifically, but Yuri knows what they’re saying already.

“Why aren’t you on the ice?” The voice behind the camera is saying, amused more than anything, and at first it’s only the girls answering, various responses on the lines of:

“We’re helping!”

“We hadn’t finished stretching!”

and Yuri’s personal favourite,

“I’m too busy sitting on Beka.”

Which is true. Yuri has the image practically burned into his retinas. They’re all on the floor, and though most of the girls are attempting to do the splits, like Beka is, there’s a few who are otherwise occupied.

One, obviously the ringleader, is sitting on his back. Two more, equally mischievous, are trying to add to her weight and push his chest right to the floor.

The video is from behind, which only makes it worse.

“Beka, what are you doing?” The voice is laughing now, and so’s Mila, the sly bitch.

“Suffering.” Beka’s voice is strained, but his response causes the girls to burst into peals of laughter.

Honestly, it would be fine. It’s a perfectly innocent video, and it fits with what Beka’s told him about his coach trying to soften his image.

The thing is, Beka’s captioned it;

_@yuri-plisetsky I think I need someone a little bigger #stretching #iceskating #help_

And the comments are going wild.

_@phichit+chu !!! @yuri-plisetsky something you aren’t telling us? ;) ;) ;)_

_@otabek-altin @phichit+chu Have you not seen the picture of Yuri helping me do this stretch?_

_@phichit+chu @otabek-altin don’t play coy ;) ;) ;)_

Fucking Phichit.

Yuri never does come up with a response to it. Mila, despite his protests, finally wrestles his phone away and types something that, at the time, seems innocent enough.

_@ yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin nice to know I’m not the only one with a crazy fan club_

And that, he thinks, should be the end of the matter.

 

-

 

The next day, the urge to tease him about it seems to have worn off somewhat. By the time they finish for the day, Yuri’s almost forgotten about it, already concentrating on the programme.

Checking instagram when he comes off the ice is a habit, however, and to his great surprise he finds that Otabek has tagged him in another video.

It’s not much, the last few seconds of a routine that they all already recognise. It’s only the final positions, but the rink is empty apart from him, and the lighting suggests that it’s already evening.

The video is a minute long, though, so Yuri waits, intrigued to see what else there is. He doesn’t want to scroll down to the caption until he’s seen the whole thing this time.

Sure enough, as Beka finishes, there’s a sudden uproar. The camera swings to the edge of the rink, to show twenty – no, surely thirty – of the juniors, lined up against the side of the rink. They’re banging their hands against the edge of the rink in a steady ryhtm, and chanting –

“O-ta-bek, O-ta-bek, O-ta-bek.”

Yuri blinks.

Christ, that’s not what he was expecting.

Otabek is suddenly back in shot, skating down the line and high-fiving all the girls as they hold out their hands across the barrier.

The video finishes with Otabek fist-bumping whoever’s behind the camera, and skating off to cool down.

The caption, and tag:

_@yuri-plisetsky They want a different name than Otabek’s angels. Any suggestions? #iceskating #kazakhstanjuniors #takingsuggestions_

 

-

 

It doesn’t end there.

Yuri, unable to think of anything witty to respond with, simply doesn’t.

Instead, he goes about running his instagram like he usually would, posting a quick selfie of him and his cat when he gets home from the rink. The next morning, he follows it up with a short video of part of his training with Lilia; a couple of grand jetés, to a truly horrendous and hilarious remix of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance of the Swans’.

The caption:

_Told Lilia I wanted to use this (volume on) for my next ex skate. After WTTM, she doesn’t know whether I’m joking or not. #ballet #training #skating #practice #video #volumeon #music #mylegacy_

The responses, as expected, are hilarious. The angels are way too gullible, as, apparently, are most of his friends.

_@katsukidon beautiful form!_

_@v-nikiforov please be nice to Lilia, Yurio, she’s done so much for you!_

_@mila-b is that why you wanted help with your step sequence the other day? ;)_

_@yuri-plisetsky @mila-b when have I ever asked for you help? You interfere whether I want you to or not_

Otabek doesn’t respond, but he does like it. Yuri’s slightly disappointed, but he supposes after his silence on a direct question, he can’t be too upset.

The moment he gets off from the afternoon’s practice, however, there’s another tag and another video waiting for him. Going by the views, it’s been out for a few hours already.

It’s right across the rink, and the shot remains empty for a few seconds, although the sound of skates is unmistakeable.

Then Otabek shoots across the screen, his take-off already behind him. It captures him in mid-air as he spins, and vanishing out of shot before he lands. Following him, are one, two, three... the camera catches nearly twelve single spins, every single one landed, by girls who look no older than ten.

_@yuri-plisetsky Their favourite suggestion so far is ducklings. Apparently it’s something to do with your rendition of Swan Lake? #iceskating #otabeksducklings #kazakhstanjuniors_

Yuri, once again stumped for an answer, quickly types out a comment, slings his bag over one shoulder, and heads home with a grin.

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin you’re training with the juniors? What are they teaching you?_

Obviously it’s a joke – Otabek’s jump was most likely a quad, from what he saw of it, and at best guess, he’d say that the junior girls’ training simply follows his in the evenings.

Of course, there’s some people who take it too seriously, but most people aren’t even paying attention to his response. Apparently cooing over the Hero of Kazakhstan either skating with or helping to train his juniors is too swoon-worthy for Yuri’s sass to get an edge in on the attention. Despite Mila’s suspicions, it’s actually kind of nice to be off the hook for once.

Otabek, however, doesn’t ignore him.

There’s yet another video tag waiting for him after Thursday’s practice, and this time, because he’s got the afternoon off, he’s one of the first to see it.

He seems to be making a habit of videos. This one starts much the same as the others, facing straight across the rink. It seems to be balanced and timed; there’s no hand shaking, and no voice behind the camera.

Almost immediately, the stream of girls starts across the screen, each of them skating past in single file, and in flawlessly beautiful arabesques. From a perspective slightly further out than the last video, it’s possible to see just how perfect their posture is.

And last, but not least, at 0:55 seconds in, is Otabek – his leg aloft, his posture beautiful – and his face scrunched up in a look of almost constipated determination. He’s actually not half bad.

The music is hilariously chosen: Prokofiev’s ‘Montagues and Capulets’. Yuri’s fighting to keep a straight face.

The caption:

_@yuri-plisetsky They’ve been practicing this all day. Apparently I am now good enough to be allowed to share it publicly. #iceskating #otabeksducklings #kazakhstanjuniors_

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin you’ve improved_

_@otabek-altin @yuri-plisetsky You wouldn’t say that if you say their attempts to teach me to plié. Apparently I am a disgrace to your name, and my country would never recover from the indignity._

_@phichit+chu @otabek-altin OMG I MUST SEE THIS_

Most of the following comments are along the same line as Phichit’s.

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin have to agree with @phichit+chu, I’d like to see whether those stretches help_

That, obviously, is followed by demands to see exactly what stretches Yuri taught Otabek.

With nothing else to do with his afternoon, and his instagram already saturated with pictures of his cat, Yuri sees no harm in obliging them. Procuring Lilia’s studio doesn’t take much persuasion (Thursday afternoons are off for her too), and the shots don’t take long to take.

He chooses five in the end – with such a public profile, giving really difficult stretches out is a bad idea.

He settles for a few well-known, basic postures pretty quickly. The lighting, facial expressions and hairstyle take another half-hour or so, but eventually, he finds a set that he’s happy with.

He posts it as a collection, and tags Otabek:

_@otabek-altin remember these? #ballet #stretches #skating #practice_

Otabek likes it almost immediately. The response takes a few hours.

Yuri’s debating dinner when the notification comes through. If he’d been any more decisive, he might have choked on his food.

Otabek is wearing a tutu. And not just any tutu either. It’s way, way too small for him, bright pink, and very obviously belongs to one of the now-famous juniors. Poker-faced, Otabek has posed his stretches to mirror Yuri’s exactly. Even the order of the collection is the same.

Yuri is incredibly glad that Mila isn’t here to laugh at him because Otabek’s caption requires him to sit on the floor for a good five minutes.

He might possibly be hyperventilating.

_@yuri-plisetsky Anything for you. #tutu_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even sorry
> 
> The Swans Remix: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojCM2URxv0E
> 
> Montagues and Capulets:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXAGrO_kH_s


	3. The Tutu Challenge, Part 1 - Almaty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic just keeps coming. It's 3am, I have class at 9 that I haven't done the reading for, and this hasn't been proofread. 
> 
> *cue screaming*

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin you had to one-up me with the tutu, didn’t you?_

_@otabek-altin @yuri-plisetsky Who said it’s over?_

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin is that a challenge?_

_@otabek-altin @yuri-plisetsky *thumbsup*_

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin there’s literally an emoji for that. Can’t the ducklings teach you how to use your phone?_

_@otabek-altin @yuri-plisetsky Ballet first, phone second._

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin at least you have your priorities straight._

Yuri’s been tagged in so many screenshots of the conversation at this point that he’s stopped registering it. Every time someone sends him a picture with his and Beka’s handles at the top, he tabs out, or starts refusing to respond in anything but gif form. Well, he only does that to Mila. But Mila’s the only one who’s been sending him the memes.

Everyone who is even remotely interested in skating has seen the exchange – and a good deal of people who aren’t. The ‘ducklings’ (it’s stuck, despite several much cleverer suggestions since) even have their own instagram now, and it has equally as many, if not more, followers as Beka’s.

The challenge, however, remains unanswered. Nearly a month later, people are beginning to forget what it was that prompted them to follow the skaters, and the comments sections of his posts have once again dissolved into in-fighting. Beka’s and the ducklings’ posts are mostly just a place for middle aged mothers to coo over a handsome young man who’s good with kids, and everyone else with eyes are constantly pleading for information on his upcoming gigs. Every now and then, the two accounts double-post, and the internet blows up for a bit. Nothing, however, in comparison to the initial scale of the thing.

And Yuri’s finally got an idea.

He’s got a week off directly after his next competition, and a lot of winnings to spend.

 

-

 

Yuri has a terrible track record for thinking about things before posting them. In his defence, this time, it’s not entirely his fault.

Yakov disagrees.

“I don’t care who posted it! How many times am I going to have to find out that one of my skaters has run away from Russia through instagram?”

Yuri leans on the barrier, paying more attention to the skaters than the lecture.

“It’s my week off, Yakov. You practically banned me from the rink.”

“All rinks in general, not just St Petersburg! Flying across Europe to skate with a bunch of kids is not what I had in mind.”

“Me neither,” Yuri grins, “But here I am. They’re pretty good, too. You should come and scout sometime. This twelve-year old does one of the cleanest triple toe loops I’ve ever seen.” He nods at Kati as she flies past, and she blushes at the compliment, only for Yuri to yell after her “shoulders, Kati! What did I tell you about your shoulders!”

“Are you... coaching?” Yakov’s voice is utterly disbelieving. “You’re coaching the Kazakhstan juniors?”

“Otabek’s ducklings,” Yuri corrects. “They’re very enthusiastic. It’s quite refreshing.”

Yakov gives up.

“If I see a single skate of yours on the ice, I will personally fly to Almaty to drag you back before you injure yourself.” he grouses, and hangs up.

Yuri grins.

First battle won.

 

-

 

Yakov doesn’t actually have instagram. Mila does, however, and their coach has browbeaten her into showing him anything and everything related to skating. He also knows how to use the internet, which means that anything that Mila doesn’t show him only delays his discovery anyway.

Yuri’s got used to this strange arrangement over the years. Their media presence has always been a part of their training as well as the actual skating, and Yuri grew up as part of the social media generation. He likes to think he knows what he’s doing, if his thousands of followers across multiple platforms are anything to go by.

Taking Yakov’s parting words as his permission, Yuri badgers Kati into letting him post the second photo.

The first is what made it to the duckling’s Instagram before Yuri had a chance to consider the consequences – it’s actually quite a nice one.

There’s been a thing about their leggings recently. Yuri had commented on one of their training videos in which one of the girls had been wearing Van Gogh’s ‘Starry night’ printed leggings. It turns out that the girls nearly all have a pair. All 27 of them, and they’re all different. Now they have frequent ‘leggings days’ (Yuri has his reservations about their coach letting a bunch of pre-teens label their own day, but they seem to have stuck to their tradition of strange name choices). The website has even started sponsoring them.

Which is why, when Yuri turned up at the rink without warning, he’d been less surprised than he should have been that they’d bought him a pair too. They actually weren’t too bad a fit, but apparently his mid-teenage years of anything cat-related are going to haunt him forever. They’re leopard-print. Of course they are.

He doesn’t even have to ask how they knew he was coming. Otabek can keep a secret from literally anyone in the entire world, and would take it to his grave, resistant to anyone - except the juniors. Yuri’s pretty sure he’d withstand actual torture over some things, but even if he was ever carrying a national secret, all they’d have to do to get it out of him would be to hire one of the girls to make puppy eyes at him. Yuri’s seen it happen – he _melts_. It’s honestly a blessing that they hadn’t leaked it before he got there, otherwise Yakov would quite possibly have locked him in Lilia’s bathroom for an entire week to stop him breaking the rules of his downtime.

He actually quite likes the leggings. They’re a surprisingly nice material, and warmer than he’d expected. Which, when you’re spending more time on the ice watching than skating, is a blessing.

The duckling’s photo is actually quite sweet. They’re all clustered around him, looking hopelessly excited, having forced him into trying the leggings and wearing their own. Yuri probably would have got away with it, if they didn’t all happen to be on the ice at the time.

The second one is cuter though. Hence why he’s bagsied it off Kati.

As the oldest of the ducklings, she’s the sort of unofficial leader. She is also, indisputably, the best of the bunch. Yuri has a sort of grudging friendship with her. It’s like dealing with one of the Nishigori triplets at a time, which is a lot more manageable.

“What are you going to caption it?” she leans over her side of the barrier, trying to get a peek at the post.

“Not sure yet,” He’s choosing at filter. Kati giggles, seeing the photo again.

“Yakov’s going to ring you up again just to yell at you.”

Yuri snorts.

“He already knows I was on the ice today,” he says. “The ban probably starts tomorrow.”

_How to enjoy your time off in true Kazak style. I won’t be responsible for anyone idiot enough to try this themselves. @otabek-altin @kazakhstanjuniors #otabeksducklings #leggingsday #skating #holiday_

Then he checks in it to Almaty. Not the exact rink though. He’s petty enough to make the angels do some research if they’re going to try and track down his exact location.

Half of the angels who have been arguing that there’s no way he could have left Russia and that the previous one must have been photoshopped have been silenced, much to the crowing of the others. Yuri rolls his eyes and blocks a few of the worst offenders, and the worst comments. He’s got an auto-block on anything that includes swearing or really offensive words at this point anyway, but it’s not as efficient at silencing the angels as he’s like it to be.

Kati logs into the duckling’s account and likes it immediately, dropping a comment below.

_@kazakhstanjuniors Nice to see @yuri-plisetksy and @otabek-altin practicing lifts with the twins!_

“Huh,” Yuri grins, and looks up. “You’re turning into a better PR manager than D. Though I’m not sure you can count this as lift practice.”

“Weightlifting?” Otabek’s voice approaches, along with his footsteps, from the break room. “Did you post the picture?”

Yuri lifts his screen up to show him.

It shows the two of them, each hefting one of the twins (Madison and Madina, both 9, and he _will_ learn how to tell them apart based on something other than their leggings, dammit), as they lock arms over their heads. It’s only a mock shot. Even Yuri’s not idiot enough to have two nine year old try to knock each other over on the ice, especially not from a six-foot drop. It’s cute though, and it’s the only shot they’ve got of Otabek in his own pair of leggings, also bought especially for the occasion. They’re chain-mail print. And they fit obscenely well.

Yuri’s not the only one who’s noticed, going through some of the other comments. Otabek, reading over his shoulder, coughs.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have tagged the juniors in that.”

Yuri nudges him in the stomach with his elbow.

“Hey, how was I supposed to know they’d react like that? It’s not my fault that you insist on wearing t-shirts too short to cover your butt.”

“Yura!”

Kati is already laughing at them.

“Oh my god, Beka, I wish I’d had my phone out to catch that blush.” She grins, and he launches himself on to the rink to chase her, squealing, across the ice. Yuri is filming them before he gives it a second thought. Beka is faster, obviously, but he lets her get away anyway.

The rest of the juniors are coming off break now too, and start streaming back onto the ice. D follows, taking their regular place at the rink side. This is the spot that most of the ducklings’ and Beka’s instagram videos are taken from. It’s nice seeing it in real life.

“Nice shot,” they roll their eyes at Yuri. “You do realise somebody’s going to think you were actually wrestling, right?”

“Oh, you take instagram so seriously, D.” Yuri grins. Otabek’s coach is long-suffering, but much better humoured about it than Yakov.

“Yeah, right, and you don’t,” said with a cheeky smile, “which is why you own a tripod specifically for your phone.”

Yuri is never going to live that one down. He puts his head on the plastic edge and _groans_.

“Why do none of you give selfies the respect they deserve?”

“Right, of course, you buy into the Chulanont school of thinking; they’re an _art form_.”

D is busy laughing at him when Kati skates back over.

“Yuri! Yuri! Yuri! Come join in the warm up!”

D raises an eyebrow at her.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah, I haven’t strecthed.” Yuri protests, before he remembers that D probably actually means avoiding Yakov’s wrath. He’s had that self-preservation instinct drained out of him by too much contact with Victor over the years. Not that he didn’t have a fairly wide rebellious streak of his own, but Victor had been a terrible influence anyway.

“We’re only playing tag!” Kati grins, winningly. Yuri sighs. True enough, the others are already scattering their little red cones around the ring.

“You do realise this isn’t actually how you play tag, right?”

“Well if you actually bother to tell us what the rules of your version of it are, then we might play that too.”

She should not be pairing that level of sass with puppy eyes, but fuck, it’s surprisingly persuasive. Yuri suddenly sees why Otabek finds it so difficult to resist.

He looks at D, who’s already nodding their permission.

“As long as you’re all warm and uninjured by the end of it, I don’t care what you play.”

Yuri sighs.

“Pleeeeeease,” Kati is tugging on his arm. “Beka always lets us win, and it’s reeeeeally boring.”

Yuri seriously doubts that – they take a certain amount of delight in being able to beat their hero at his own game – but he only has so much energy to protest in him.

“Oh, fine.” He pulls his skate guards off. “Prepare to lose, pipsqueak.”

She careers off across the rink to the others, practically jumping with excitement. Yuri is seriously reconsidering his life choices.

Of course D videos it, including the part where Kati cuts him up and forces him into a split-second dodge. He ends up on his face, grumbling into the ice, the girls’ laughter echoing around him. Otabek helps him to his feet, even through his own laughter, and Yuri swears his revenge on all of them.

Yakov actually goes to the effort of taking over the Team Russia instagram to inform Yuri that he will not, in fact, be getting revenge on them but will get his ass ‘ _off the ice’_ , and this is his ‘ _final warning’_.

Posting a picture of the bright purple bruise he now sports on his knee as a testament to the incident doesn’t help matters any.

Otabek finally agrees to show him Almaty instead of just the rink, much to the girls’ disappointment. Yuri’s inclined to agree, but he isn’t ungrateful enough to say so. This is Otabek’s week off too, and he’s crashing it. In _style_ , but he’s still crashing it.

 

-

 

Yuri’s instagram over the next week gets a lot more attention than it usually does during his off-time. He supposes it’s due to the variation. His normal routine involves spending time with his cat, watching films and catching up on weeks of dieting. Otabek is not letting him off that lightly.

Scrolling back through his profile, he has actually had a pretty fun few days. Otabek had dragged him out to the mountains yesterday, and despite his complaints, it hadn’t been all that bad. There were a couple of good shots of the sunset. And, of course, a selfie at the summit. It sits atop a stack of tourist shots – Yuri had been incensed when they found the speed skating rink. It’s nestled right in the actual mountains, for heaven’s sake, and it’s open air, which totally beats any of the other places he’s skated at. Despite all his wheedling, he hadn’t been able to persuade Beka to take him there.

He had, however, promised that there was actually a lake somewhere in the range that froze over in the late winter, and that he’d been skating on since he was a kid. It hadn’t been hard to wrangle a promise out of him to take Yuri there sometime when the weather was right.

Then there was the zoo, the tower, the central state museum, the markets, a park with a strangely coloured church, and a war memorial that they’d stumbled across almost by accident which had actually been _on fire_. Yuri has never been a more efficient tourist in his life. He has also religiously posted the pictures of all the food he’s tried, whether it was at a café, a restaurant, or in Beka’s flat. The angels are lapping it up.

Beka’s account has basically been dead all week without D taking photos for him, but Yuri’s made up for it. More than half of the pictures he’s taken have been selfies with Beka. The fans seems to appreciate it, if his likes are anything to go by. Probably because Beka has an uncanny ability to look good in literally any photo Yuri takes of him. Making an effort to take pictures of him removing his helmet after they’d been out on the bike had been thwarted by his perfect hair. Equally, not-so-subtly taking pictures of him working out in the living room had only got him looking annoyingly good, sweaty and shirtless, although Beka had wrestled his phone off him to delete the evidence anyway. Yuri hadn’t been able to put up much of a fight, half-arrested with giggles (he’d already sent the photo to both Mila and Kati for safekeeping, although that one never made it online). There’s even one of them chilling out at a spa – Otabek has a face-mask on, for heavens sake – and he still looks stunning.

It’s entirely unfair.

It’s not exactly part of the challenge. Yuri’s probably supposed to be one-upping Otabek, not trying to find something that Otabek _doesn’t_ look good in. The girls hadn’t been able to persuade Yuri to wear a tutu, even with the puppy eyes. There are some things that his dignity would never survive, and wearing a tutu is one of them. Beka, apparently, has no such qualms.

“Come on,” Otabek nudges his foot under the table, putting their empty coffee cups together for the waitress. “I have plans for your last evening.”

Yuri looks up from his phone, intrigued.

“Hey, you never mentioned that. Are we going back to the rink again?”

Otabek shakes his head, standing.

“We’ve already snuck in every night this week. I thought we could do with some variation.” Yuri grins. Otabek dealt about as well as he did with being banned from the ice, which is to say, not at all. He also had D’s spare key, which they were still under the impression that they’d lost.

“So, what, is it a secret?” Yuri says as they fall into step, heading back in the direction of Beka’s flat.

“Perhaps.”

“ _Otabek_.” It doesn’t get him anywhere.

Apparently the puppy eyes only work when you’re a duckling. Yuri makes a mental note to stick to pouting.

They take a shortcut through a square to get back to Otabek’s bike, a different way to the way they came – and stumble across a temporary rink.

“Hey, Beka,”

“Nope.”

“I didn’t even ask the question.” Yuri protests, stopping to watch a couple of kids stumbling over on the ice.

“We’re in public. Someone will recognise us, news will get back to Yakov, and he’ll drag you back to Russia.” Even so, he’s stopped to watch too.

“I’m going back to Russia tomorrow anyway,” Yuri wheedles. “Don’t you want to show it off now that we can do it?”

Otabek sighs.

“Nor particularly. The fun was in learning it.”

They watch in silence for a few more minutes. None of the people on the rink are any good at it, even the token few in the middle – the wannabe speed skaters who are too heady on the adrenalin to always watch where they’re going, and occasionally wipe someone out in their arrogance. Yuri kind of hates them. What better way to teach an asshole a lesson?

“Do you know how I ended up figure skating?” Otabek asks eventually, turning to Yuri, who shakes his head. “I was a speed skater, initially. Just a Saturday club. Something I did with friends. We came to skate at a rink like this. There were a couple of kids with their own skates, wanting to show off or be scouted, who knows. But one of them did a jump. The way she yelled as she landed – it sounded like pure euphoria. I wanted to try it. And eventually when I was good enough to jump, and I landed my first, it was even better.”

Yuri snorts.

“You’re a walking cliché, sometimes, Beka.” He chastises. “So, are we gonna get out there and inspire the next generation of Kazak skaters or not?”

They borrow skates. It’s probably a bad idea, but going home to get their own will take too long, and it’s their last chance.

They’re not recognised immediately. Yuri’s not surprised that he isn’t – he might be a household name in Russia, but outside of their own countries skaters tended to be less well known in public. The proportion of the population who followed skating in comparison to, say, football, even in a city as involved in winter sports as Almaty, is rare. Otabek is Kazakhstan’s darling, however, and the fact that nobody at an actual ice skating rink recognises him seems a bit of a stretch.

It’s not until they get out on the ice that Yuri realises that they _do_ recognise him. Both of them, potentially. They’re just not being accosted with angel-like enthusiasm. People are taking pictures from the side of the rink, though. It looks like they’re committed to this.

Just to piss them off, Yuri speeds past all the wannabes in the centre. It’s immensely satisfying, even when Beka joins him. Thoroughly defeated, the arrogant twats relinquish their centre spot, leaving Yuri and Otabek to race each other. It’s quite hard to get up to full speed on a rink about a quarter of the size they’re used to using. It’s fun anyway, unnecessarily silly and nothing like the time they usually spend on the ice. Eventually Otabek pulls ahead, turning to skate backwards and laugh at Yuri.

“That all you got?”

Beka comes alive when he skates. Yuri grins into it, relishing the freedom.

“I’m just warming up.”

Otabek’s little smirk breaks out into a broad grin.

“I’m ready when you are.”

“Oh, I’m ready.”

Their speed is more controlled now, but the centre has cleared for them. It’s nearing the end of the session, and people are beginning to step off the ice. Just as Yuri sets himself up, the tannoy asks everyone to get off the ice.

Otabek shrugs one shoulder.

“Well, we’ve got enough space now,” he says as the rest of the skaters stream towards the exits, leaving the rink nearly empty.

Yuri grins.

“Only one chance to get it right though.”

He lets the distance between them grow again, then starts to close it, timing the slide of their skates together. Closer, closer, until it almost feels like they’re going to crash. Then Beka’s arms are around him, and Yuri folds, tenses. Beka lifts, and flings him. It’s so high, so far, so much more than he’s ever managed on his own, but he lands it _perfectly_. Not even a wobble.

Otabek lets out a whoop of success. Yuri’s laughing, remembering the story of the skater on the ice who inspired Beka. The euphoria carries him into another jump of his own, a triple axel, just because he _can_.

Somebody has started clapping.

Panting, Yuri pulls to a stop. Otabek has already stopped, and is leaning on the barrier waiting for him.

“What do you think?” Yuri grins, looking along the side of the rink at their awestruck audience. The applause is somewhat deafening. He has to yell. “Did we do our job?”

Beka pulls him into a breath-crushing hug, still laughing.

“Let go of me, you lump,” Yuri grumbles, not even trying to stop himself from giggling. “We’ve got to get off the ice.”

By the time they get back to the flat, there are videos all over... well, everything. Not just instagram, but twitter, facebook, everywhere.

He has no less than seven missed called from Yakov.

It’s totally worth it.

 

-

 

It turns out that Beka’s plans for Yuri’s last night in Almaty is to take him out clubbing. Yuri practically bursts with excitement. Being invited is entirely different from having to sneak in, especially when Beka says he’s going to have to call a Taxi instead of getting on the bike so that he can take his DJ equipment.

Yuri makes an extra effort.

Earlier in the week, they’d bought a black snapback at a market, kind of as a joke. He wears it now, just because it’ll make Beka smile, but instead of just letting it be he builds his whole outfit around it. He plaits his hair, neat and tight for once, over one shoulder, and rims his eyes carefully with the black pencil that he’s been practicing with in private for a while now. The crop-top he hasn’t had a chance to wear in the encroaching winter will be perfect for the heat of a club, and his skinny jeans, the ripped ones with the tiny chains hanging from the belt, accentuate his skater’s physique in all the right places. It’s a good look, with the hat positioned backwards, and low on his head.

He sticks his tongue out, throwing caution to the wind. He’d got it pierced on his first day here, but so far, nobody but Otabek actually knows. The little silver ball is just about healing, though, and it looks epic with the jean studs.

He posts a quick selfie before he goes, the first of just him since he got here.

_@otabek-altin you better have a good set now I’ve gone to all this effort #clubbing #almaty #nightout #lastnight #dj #selfie #piercing_

Predictably, almost all the response he gets is questions about the videos from the public rink, plus fangirling over both his face and piercing (justified) and the fact that Otabek is just that cool (even more justified) but even so, it’s one of his most liked selfies of all time.

It’s an awesome evening.

Yuri regrams one of the club photographer’s shots the next morning for the curiosity of the fans. It’s from behind, looking up at the stage. Yuri’s let his hair down, and the cap is gone, but it’s unmistakeably him, right at the front of a writhing crowd. Above him, just visible under the highly coloured lights and set-up, is Otabek. Wearing the snapback.

Instagram goes insane again.

 

-

 

Yuri doesn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the juniors before he goes, thanks to the time of his flight, but he promises to come back and visit as soon as he can.

Quietly, he suspects it might take some time for Yakov to calm down from this particular stint. The girls don’t need to know that, though. Beka sends him several texts over the course of the flight relaying their various messages to him. They’re waiting for him, in one big affectionate lump, when he lands. If Yakov notices that he’s a little wet around the eyes when he bundles him into the car, he doesn’t say anything about it. He doesn’t say much about anything else either, but Yuri can’t bring himself to be grateful for the postponed lecture.

Otabek has posted for the first time in a week – it’s a photo D took, again, of him on the floor, stretching after his first afternoon back at training. The girls are collected around him, but their enthusiasm is gone. It kind of looks like they’re playing sleeping lions, with legs and arms all over the place. They’re definitely not stretching – they’re just kind of flopped over on the floor. There are some very mournful expressions. It’s adorable.

_Missing somebody already @yuri-plisetsky @kazakhstanjuniors #otabeksducklings #iceskating #supposedtobestretching_

_@kazakstanjuniors @otabek-altin can you blame us? @yuri-plisetsky abandoned us after only coming to one training session :’( :’( :’(_

_@yuri-plisetsky @kazakhstanjuniors I would have loved to come to more. Maybe next time I won’t be on my break and I’ll be allowed on the ice without having to be blackmailed?_

_@kazakhstanjuniors @yuri-plisetsky lies!! We only blackmail Beka, and he’d do anything for us anyway <3 <3 <3 _

_@yuri-plisetsky @otabek-altin I do hope you realise you have thoroughly spoilt our 27 children._

_@yuri-plisteky @otabek-altin I meant *your children but apparently the damage of autocorrect is done._

_@kazakhstanjuniors you’re the perfect parents!! @otabek-altin is the soft one who lets us get away with murder and @yuri-plisetsky is the one who always makes sure we actually get stuff done!!_

_@otabek-altin @ yuri-plisetsky You’re stuck with the responsibility of Kati’s triple axel now. If she drops her shoulders in competition the whole skating world will know who’s to blame._

_@yuri-plisetsky @kazakhstanjuniors their shoulders are the least of my concerns if they don’t stretch properly_

_@mila-bb @yuri-plisetsky Lilia, is that you?_

_@kazakhstanjuniors @yuri-plisetsky we are stretching properly already!! We will make you proud at competition!!_

Infinitely glad that Yakov is driving and won’t be privy to that particular fuck-up for at least another half an hour, Yuri curls up in the passenger seat and goes to sleep.

He gets very drunk that night.

It’s sort of an accident. Now he lives on his own, he keeps a bottle of Vodka in the cupboard just because he can, and it’s been untouched since he moved in. It’s just... there. And then there’s about a quarter of it missing.

When he gets up still drunk, he knows that going to the rink is a bad idea.

Yakov is already pissed at him, and missing the first day of training is going to make it even worse, so Yuri makes a point of tweeting about being ill before calling Yakov to beg off. Thankfully, he hadn’t been on his phone last night, and getting pissed on his own means that there’s no evidence of what actually happened.

He does, however, make the slightly drunken mistake of taking a picture of his breakfast apple (first day back on the diet) and posting it along with the caption:

_Homesick or sick sick? Not sure. Send medicine anyway. Preferably sugar and/or carbs. #ill #grumpy #dietfood_

When he wakes up, finally hungover and regretting his life choices immensely, at 3pm, there’s a tag waiting for him. It’s from the ducklings.

It’s a picture of all the girls, rinkside, holding tickets. It’s a boomerang, and they’re all caught, mid-jump, over and over. There are legs and arms all over the place, like there tends to be whenever D tries to fit all of them in one shot, but they’re all wearing matching euphoric smiles.

_Otabek’s Ducklings are going to their first big competition!! We can’t wait to see our hero @otabek-altin perform live!! @yuri-plisetsky this might help you feel better too?_

It does make him smile, if only because the idea of D and Otabek trying to herd all 27 of the girls on and off a flight is hilarious.

@ _yuri-plisetsky @kazakhstanjuniors @otabek-altin I’ll see you there._

He only finds Otabek’s comment on his apple post later, because Mila finds it first, and the idiot forgot to tag him.

_@otabek-altin I’m impressed you remembered about that._

Shit, of course. Almaty, Alma-Ata, city of apples, father of apples, whatever – crap, he doesn’t have the heart to tell him it was an honest mistake. Not that Yuri hadn’t been paying attention when Otabek told him that, it was just that he hadn’t been paying attention to what Otabek was _saying_.

“I am well and truly fucked,” he tells Potya, who has already got over her ‘I’m snubbing you because you abandoned me for a week’ stage and come for cuddles.

She purrs her agreement.

 


End file.
